The Esri defense team was proud to be an exhibitor at last year’s Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), the world’s largest technology modeling, simulation, and training event. If you missed the event, here are some highlights:
Digital Twins
In our booth, we showed the power of geographic information system (GIS) technology in creating digital twins to enhance the fidelity of our partners’ and users’ simulations. This is achieved in two ways: using direct creation methods and leveraging existing GIS data from around the globe. To show real-world data going directly into simulations, we demonstrated ArcGIS Maps SDKs for Game Engines (Unity and Unreal). Our direct creation workflows used ArcGIS CityEngine, ArcGIS Reality, and ArcGIS Pro.
DoD STARBASE
Here is the kind of inspiring connection you can make at this conference: At I/ITSEC 2022, we made a strong connection with the DoD STARBASE team members. One collaborative year later, we were honored to speak during their session at I/ITSEC 2023, where they showed how Esri’s GIS courses are directly applicable to this team’s wonderful education program. At DoD STARBASE, students participate in challenging “hands-on, minds-on” activities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). They interact with military personnel to explore careers and observe STEM applications in the real world. The program provides students with 25 hours of stimulating experiences at US National Guard, Marine Corps, Air Force Reserve, Army, and Air Force bases across the nation. The program is aimed at students from fifth to eighth grade, encouraging them to set and achieve goals and consider careers in STEM fields.
Technology on Display
Almost everywhere in the exhibit hall, you could see screen displays and a host of different extended reality (XR) technologies. Some of the technologies we demonstrated included two different virtual reality (VR) solutions—HTC Corporation Vive XR Elite and Meta Quest 3—and one augmented reality (AR) solution from Magic Leap, keeping hardware choice and technology approach very much in the hands of the end user and developer.
I/ITSEC is the premier event for seeing the innovation of tomorrow’s technology today.
